Hiatt - Party of 4

Pretty much every day my lunch consists of a Lean Cuisine and a salad. I generally prep all my salads on Sunday so each morning I just grab one of each and head out.

As you might remember, me and some friends of mine are doing a monthly Supper Club. January we did Chinese New Year from Cooking Light.

Since I ended up buying so many ingredients that I didn't typically have in my kitchen, I wanted to put them to use. So one Sunday afternoon I did up a double batch of the Sweet and Sour Chicken recipe and a batch of brown jasmine rice from Trader Joe's. I packaged them all into individual serving containers (and measured mine out exactly since I am counting calories) and ended up with a weeks worth of lunches for me, 2 lunches for Chris and lunch for the kids for one day (I could have gotten probably a few more meals for me and/or the kids but I did bigger servings for Chris).

So not only do I have a yummy lunch ready to grab on my way out the door, it is cost effective and about 25% of the sodium content of frozen meals!

A few weeks ago we were in Costco and I had Hannah in the cart. The lady was behind us in line and she was striking up a conversation about how her brother has an extra chromosome too and how handsome she thought Zach was.

Then she looked at me and Hannah and said "WOW! Someone really looks like their mommy!". The look on Hannah's face was priceless. She was beaming. She was proud.

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy but as the day went on it made me think about how much I want to be a mom for her to be truly proud of. I need to be the mom to shed this weight and be a healthier version of myself. For me AND for her.

I am proud to say that in the first 4 weeks, I am down 15 lbs and I am still going strong.

I want to feel like the mom that I see in my daughters eyes when she looks at me.

...... of this blog.

I haven't been writing much in the last year and I do miss it. Over the years it has been therapeutic writing about the kids and life and Down syndrome. I love going back and reading the posts and seeing how much the kids have grown.

Rarely do I write about me. I have been thinking lately that I want to start writing more about me and using this to record some of my thoughts and talk about what I am up to. Next year I am vowing to be way more active. Not only me, but as a family. For all of us. I need to lose a large amount of weight and maybe if I talk about it more with others it will keep me accountable. In 2009 I lost 48 pounds in about 6 months. When I hit 50 I was going to post about it on here. I didn't hit 50. Then life got in the way and I stopped working on the weight loss. In 2010 life got crazy with ... well a lot!(you can go back and read the posts). And then Hannah turned 3 and officially entered CrazyTown and truth be told... I would have a glass of wine, or sometimes 3, a couple nights a week. It seemed to take the edge off of the stress of everything and those calories added up and back came the 50 lbs!

So I ask you... do this with me. Post comments and let me know you are with me. If we are Facebook friends we can stay in touch and motivate each other. I have also joined a couple friends on FitnessPal. It is a great free program that you can help make things a little easier.

2012 is going to rock. I can feel it!